WAY2INBOX FAQ

Q: How do I build opt-in lists?

Opt-in lists are simply lists wherein the subscriber has chosen to explicitly join or permit receiving E mail content. Few ways in which we may collect opt-in or grow the list are:-

1. Visitor/ comment logs

2. By collecting the visiting cards

3. Personal calling

4. Face book widget and Apps

5. Affiliate marketing thru publishers and campaigns

6. QR codes

7. Online forms/Feedback forms

8. Website registration widget

Q: What is SPAM?

Email Spam is an unsolicited mail for which the user has not given permissions.
Real spam is generally email advertising for some product sent to a mailing list or newsgroup while the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media.

Q: What is the CAN –SPAM Act? IS Way2INBOX following it?

As a responsible ESP; we are pretty conscious of following the best practices and also we don’t want to bother your subscribers with SPAM. So we have our cerebral systems in place to follow certain harmless yet effective guidelines :

A. To start with you should agree to our terms and conditions and please read it completely.

B. Source of Subscriber’s opting –in List: Be crystal clear while you state this to us. We have the systems in place to detect any abuse.

b. Avoid deceptive subject lines – the subject line and the content of the message must be in sync.

c. Identify messages as advertisements

d. Provide your location – According to the act your message MUST include a valid postal address.

e. Make opt-out / unsubscribe easy and clear

i. Induce a unsubscribe link and purposefully it should not be complicated.

ii. The link should be active for 30 days from the day the email is send out.

iii. You can’t charge money for un-subscription.

iv. After Unsubs ensure that there is no more mail being send to this customer.

v. You may create a menu to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages.

vi. But you must include the option to stop all commercial messages from you.

vii. Make sure your spam filter doesn’t block these opt-out requests.

viii. You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honouring an opt-out request.

ix. You can’t sell or transfer their email addresses.

f. Honour the opt-out / unsubscribe requests immediately - Sender has 10 day to remove the person from the list .

g. Monitor agencies and others who communicate for you and your organization – If agencies are employed to distribute your email, you are still responsible for CAN-SPAM compliance.

Q: How to avoid Spam –Like content

a. Never use ALL CAPS.

b. Avoid excessive use of “click here”, $$ and other symbols.

c. Avoid words like “free”, “guarantee”, “spam”, “credit card” etc.

d. Do not include unsubscribe instructions more than one time in an e-mail.

e. If you use an automated mail-merge solution, the potential exists for a mistake to be made where, instead of their name, it shows the mail-merge code and this is a major spam flag. Alternately, having Dear , (where the name is missing) is not only bad form, it’s another potential spam flag so if you DO use mail-merge, double check the results output and resolve such issues before mailing.

f. Do not use all or extensive BOLD lettering.

g. Do not over-use multiple colour font variations.

Q: What is the difference between “Hard Bounce” and “Soft Bounce?”

Hard Bounce: This primarily mans that we have send your mail but the receiving server has absolutely rejected it. Some common reasons to this may be: the domain no longer exists, the email does not exist.

Soft bounce: A ‘Soft ‘bounce is an intermittent, temporary condition. The mail was send to the receiving server and was processed too; but for reasons as “ email server might be temporarily overloaded” or “offline” ,” the recipient might be over their inbox quota size” or “there might be a temporary problem with the remote server configuration” it was returned to us.

Q: What are the checkpoints before I send an Email Campaign?

1. From Line – Preferably use your company name. This is how people would know the origin of e-mail.

6. BE action-oriented: Remember to highlight the action point for the user. If it is a invite use “Invitation: Efficient emailing practices” instead of E mail efficiency meet.

7. Mention the Deadlines: If the action associated with your message includes a date or deadline, do include it in the email subject.

Q: What is Dedicated IP. Is it important?

ISP looks at the reputation of the domain you send the emails from and the reputation of the IP address used for sending the emails to ensure that the mail get properly routed to the Inbox .
So if you follow the best email standards and send to opt-in database; your IP would gain Good reputation.

In Sharing IP address reputation is build by all the neighbours sending from that IP. If anyone does something that is in conflict with good email practices, this can hurt the IP address reputation and get the IP blacklisted too; which may blanket every mail send from this IP.